The hidden years in Canada 184, the sun rises in the East

When I had paid the ticket, I had passed the point of doubt. The girl had been nice and young and defiantly appealing, but when my ticket was in the case with a picture on it, of a German street with half-timbered walls, I shut a part of my life definitively off. I said goodbye her and wanted to walk to the Pontiac. ‘Why do you not fly from Calgary,’ the girl had asked? ‘Montreal is 4000 km to the east.’ ‘Because I'm going to embark my car,’ I said, 'I can not leave my friend here. The girl had looked at me in a puzzled way and then smiled. It was strange to leave without saying goodbye to anyone, but that is how it went.

I refueled the old American and drove to the main highway that cuts across all of Canada and is therefore called the Trans Canada highway. The main road ran through 10 provinces, connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean and had a length of 8000 kilometers. I would , leaving Calgary, take the exit for East and it would take me a day or four to my point of departure, Montreal. In the harbor, I would drive the American into a container and take a taxi to the airport . Arriving at the T intersection, I hit right to the east and began my long journey that would take me along Ottawa where I could pick up my passport. I did not have trip odometer in the American, that belonged in a world without traffic, which was completely white. But I looked at my usual speedometer and would add 3800 kilometers to it before stopping.

I had some clearance but my flight would go in about five days and from Ottawa to the Port of Montreal was only a few hours driving. Thus began a journey of fuelling up if you passed a gas station and you’d get yourself a cup of coffee with apple pie and even allowed yourself within the car, next to the pumping station, fifteen minutes of closing your eyes, after which you’d drive your tank empty again. I missed the routine of changing with Bill every four hours and the day was long. So I drove away from the province that had robbed so much away from me. Where so many missed opportunities lay, where Beverely would marry an idiot ,while she could have been with me and the tires sang on the road in a long song that obliterated memories per travelled mile.

I had already left while I was still driving, my heart was already on the other side of the Atlantic. When I left the embassy three days later in Ottawa, I was the holder of my first passport which I myself had requested. I was tired of the 3,800 kilometers that lay behind me and I knew that the end was nearing completion, but although my body was tired, I felt my mind to be razor-sharp. Before long I would leave this country, this country that I had never chosen. I would go back to ‘the old country’ and I knew my Frisian aunt would receive me with open arms. From there, I would find my way and something told me that it was not going to be an easy road but I shook it off. There were vague promises in the offing. My life would begin again with new opportunities.

The harbor was easy to find and after completing the paperwork, I was allowed to drive my blue friend into a shipping container. I gave the address of my aunt as a reception place and by taxi I went towards Dorval airport. Nobody saw me off, I waved the country and the bad experiences away, I would get on the neutral territory of the Lufthansa flight and the flight would cleanse me above no one's land and bring me safely to the old continent. The engines roared with varying speed when we taxied towards the runway. I looked again out through the small window, it was a drizzly day. The boeing sat right in front of the runway, there was no turning back, I would give my life direction elsewhere, suddenly a shudder went through the plane. Slowly the colossus went into motion, and accelerated by the meter, the adrenaline was pumping through my veins, the great bird rose and went into a steep angle in the cloudy sky. Good bye Mom, I said, Good bye Evert and I closed my eyes.

The end.

I want to thank you all for reading along and commenting on this story, it has become more than what I had initially envisioned. The story, however, forced itself on me, along side tracks and byways to bring facts that otherwise would have been left behind. Giving direction to one’s life is far more difficult than we imagine at the outset, I have learned that more direction is given to man by society, environment, and whatever else, than the influence that we should like to exert ourselves.

Now I ‘ll need time to leave this story behind me, before writing something else, the early years of my life have brought back memories which in turn need to settle.. We make the choices and live on from there, until new choices arise, not all choices we make will turn out to have been good ones in retrospect, but yes, ... that is why we live. Life is for learning.